Apparently the Biblical stories of Jesus were completely made up by the Roman's in a psychological warfare tactic to pacify Jewish rebellions.

I have to say that I always thought the bible was about as factually accurate as a Mickey Mouse cartoon - never went down well in my C of E School or with the Christian Union types as University.

Or they could have just killed people en masse - which is what they did.

Ignoring for a moment that the Romans would have put in place one of the most elaborate conspiracies in the history of the planet, why bother? Just kill people which is what they did all over the place for several hundred years.

Believing the above Roman conspiracy is as stupid IMPO as being Joseph Smith.

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Or they could have just killed people en masse - which is what they did.

Ignoring for a moment that the Romans would have put in place one of the most elaborate conspiracies in the history of the planet, why bother? Just kill people which is what they did all over the place for several hundred years.

There is also the small matter that when the Romans started persecuting Christians, shortly after* allegedly inventing Jesus, no-one is on record mentioning that Jesus was a fabrication.

Even Christianity's bitterest opponents didn't come up with that one. Accusations of being a false prophet/ messiah, yes. Never existed, no.

If you wade through the New Testament, as I was obliged to do as a kid, it's easy enough to discern that there probably was a real person at the heart of it all. With contradictions and hyperbole creeping into his biography, as competing accounts were written for different target audiences and the fulfillment of this or that prophecy. I can't prove that this point of view is definitely correct but it hangs a lot better with the available evidence and human nature than Atwill's thesis does.

edit: * or in the case of Nero, persecuting Christians before their religion was allegedly made up by the Flavians who came to power after his reign

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But the Romans - principally Constantine in the 4th century AD - did invent a lot of the bible story, notably the fairytale elements like the Christmas story we know today. It was (it seemed at the time) a stroke of political genius, turning a very dangerous cult into something cuddly and bringing it in from the cold to the mainstream.

The Church - turning the story of Christ into a terrorist cult (the Al Qaeda of its time) - was invented much earlier, by the psychopath known as St. Paul.

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But the Romans - principally Constantine in the 4th century AD - did invent a lot of the bible story, notably the fairytale elements like the Christmas story we know today. It was (it seemed at the time) a stroke of political genius, turning a very dangerous cult into something cuddly and bringing it in from the cold to the mainstream.

The Church - turning the story of Christ into a terrorist cult (the Al Qaeda of its time) - was invented much earlier, by the psychopath known as St. Paul.

I only, in the 7th century, someone infiltrated a few paragraphs from The Care Bears into the Holy Q'uran, the world might be a different place.

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But the Romans - principally Constantine in the 4th century AD - did invent a lot of the bible story, notably the fairytale elements like the Christmas story we know today. It was (it seemed at the time) a stroke of political genius, turning a very dangerous cult into something cuddly and bringing it in from the cold to the mainstream.

The Church - turning the story of Christ into a terrorist cult (the Al Qaeda of its time) - was invented much earlier, by the psychopath known as St. Paul.

Interesting, I think, that both Paul and Constantine only became Christian later in life after claiming supernatural conversion experiences. Though, in practice, there was a large dollop of Christianity being converted to their way of thinking rather than the more conventional way round.

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Mr Atwill accepts that his theory will upset some believers but is confident that it will be accepted in good time.

Best of luck with that

Although Christianity can be a comfort to some, it can also be very damaging and repressive, an insidious form of mind control that has led to blind acceptance of serfdom, poverty, and war throughout history.

I'd replace "Christianity" with "most religion".

I've always assumed that there was indeed a perfectly ordinary, mortal man called Jesus who probably was a carpenter and that some/most of Bible stories are based on fact.

Even the "parting of the waters" story (forgive my ignorance of who that was) can be explained by science. It may well actually have happened.

But then I've also always assumed that the primary purpose of religion is to harness the desire of most humans to be led to some degree coupled with a nice neat explanation of how we all came to be here thus filling two "gaps" in one.

Wasn't Henry VIII the ultimate example of that? This still puzzles me to this day.

Everyone followed the Pope, and Henry VIII saw this draining his power base. Oh, and there was that thing about re-marrying as well. So he then told everyone that he had some sort of divine right to Lord over them, and they, er, believed him and went along with it in the end.

Why?

Does that not make the C of E a sort of bastardised "nothingness"? "Impure"?

And, why did anyone ever believe that monarchs had a divine right to rule?

Is that just that impressionability again I referred to earlier?

Genuinely, no intention to upset C of E members. If it works for you, then it works for you, and nobody can take that away from you.

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If you wade through the New Testament, as I was obliged to do as a kid, it's easy enough to discern that there probably was a real person at the heart of it all. With contradictions and hyperbole creeping into his biography, as competing accounts were written for different target audiences and the fulfillment of this or that prophecy. I can't prove that this point of view is definitely correct but it hangs a lot better with the available evidence and human nature than Atwill's thesis does.

And undoubtedly many rewrites for several hundred days before the final story was decided upon. As well as the dead sea scrolls you do wonder what else was omitted/added.

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I've always assumed that there was indeed a perfectly ordinary, mortal man called Jesus who probably was a carpenter and that some/most of Bible stories are based on fact.

I've always assumed that Jesus was probably of royal descent. Someone who could gain enough political influence and popular support to scare the establishment of the time.

The most sensible explanation I've heard regarding the supposed miracles was that they're actually stories of Jesus overturning the social orthodoxy of the time. I don't have the time to do much of a search right now, but this paragraph from here:http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/staffhome/gehall/hall_miracles.htm explains what I mean:

In the story of Jesus healing the man with a paralysed hand, there is direct confrontation with the religious elite. The issue at stake is the right of Jesus to heal on the Sabbath. A legalistic interpretation of Jewish law treated the Sabbath as ultimate. Although respecting the Law and the Sabbath, Jesus does not hesitate to relegate both to a lower level than the experience of God's reign and healing power. Matthew tells us that after Jesus healed the man, "the Pharisees left and made plans to kill Jesus" (12:14). The determination of Jewish leaders to kill Jesus reaches a climax after the Temple incident where Jesus does two things: he drives out the petty capitalists for misusing God's house; and he heals the blind and crippled who, against Jewish law, come to visit him in the Temple (Mtt.21:12-17). Jesus' healing miracles are, then, correctly interpreted as subversive acts threatening religious and political interests. They show that the powerful and wealthy had too much to lose if this message of God's liberating love for the poor and oppressed got out of hand.

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I've always assumed that Jesus was probably of royal descent. Someone who could gain enough political influence and popular support to scare the establishment of the time.

The most sensible explanation I've heard regarding the supposed miracles was that they're actually stories of Jesus overturning the social orthodoxy of the time. I don't have the time to do much of a search right now, but this paragraph from here:http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/staffhome/gehall/hall_miracles.htm explains what I mean:

That's how I read it. The son of a carpenter thing being tacked on later to appeal to the slaves/ working classes amongst whom Christianity began to flourish.

Every now and again there are these odd little details in the gospels which are out of whack with what became the dominant Christian narrative - Jesus losing it in the Temple, mention that his followers were armed, Jesus blurting out at one point "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword". Rather than a complete fabrication to pacify militant Jews, the Jesus narrative reads like the biography of a militant Jew that's been narratively air-brushed, with only a few traces of the original left showing here and there.

The four gospels are not even internally consistent with each other. Christian apologists have been taking occasional stabs at merging them into a single consistent gospel since at least the second century.

As it happens, many religious folk, Christian or otherwise, seem to actually like believing internally inconsistent things and four internally inconsistent gospels are just fine.

On balance, after some study and reflection, I've concluded that he probably was a real person and people, including members of different Christian factions, have been hanging their own preconceptions and beliefs off him ever since.

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Guest eight

Guest eight

On balance, after some study and reflection, I've concluded that he probably was a real person and people, including members of different Christian factions, have been hanging their own preconceptions and beliefs off him ever since.

The Jesus is Caesar thesis is an interesting and entertaining one but I'm conscious that, with a large enough cast of characters, and some imagination, you can play this game with all sorts of historical pairings.

On balance, after some study and reflection, I've concluded that he probably was a real person and people, including members of different Christian factions, have been hanging their own preconceptions and beliefs off him ever since.

For example, the claim that he was the holy begotten Son of God sent to Earth to redeem us from our collective guilt for someone eating an apple at the beginning of time slipped my mind for some reason.